Exit Exige, enter Canada’s 1st Evora

David Grainger's Lotus Evora, the first Evora to be registered in Canada.

PHOTO: Janice Stone, handout

New Lotus is more civilized and refined

By David Grainger, Canwest News Service

Originally published: June 25, 2010

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I traded in my Lotus Exige the other day, and I did so with a surprising amount of sadness. The Exige is one of my two favourite cars of all time to drive, sharing top honours with only one other car, my now also gone 1929 4.5-litre Le Mans Bentley.

The Exige was small, cramped and hellish to get in and out of. Sometimes, it was an environment from which I desperately wanted to escape, but I always returned the next day with anticipation. Now, it’s gone.

That said, sitting in my garage (because it’s raining, damn it) is the Exige’s replacement, the very first Lotus Evora to arrive and be registered in Canada. It shares the same bloodlines as the Exige and in many ways they have a very strong family resemblance. But there are huge differences. It handles superbly, which is almost not worth mentioning as there has never been a poor-handling Lotus. But it is a little more distant from the road than the Exige, which is understandable, as it is a much larger car and has a little less track suspension. It also passes over small pieces of gravel on the road without requiring the driver to head for the nearest chiropractor.

The Evora is about two feet longer and has a back seat that is perfect for small children, briefcases or very short adults, but not all at the same time. It has a very sophisticated, leather-covered and quite sumptuous interior befitting a supercar of English manufacture and a six-cylinder engine, which is a Toyota core that has been Lotus-ized.

My new Evora is British Racing Green, which is certainly fitting. Lotus is really the only sports car in the world that deserves to wear BRG since Bentley dropped out of Le Mans competition after the 2003 season. It is significantly larger than the Exige and Elise, but it is still not a large car. In proportion, it is on par with most Porsches and a little smaller than a modern Ferrari, but it is a lot prettier than both. (Yes, I know, blasphemy.)

It is going to be a lot easier to live with as a daily driver than the Exige and it is hopefully not going to be as tempting to gun through traffic. The largest problem with both the Exige and the Elise is that every other car on the road exists for only two purposes — to swing past like pylons on an obstacle course or just to be in the way. One is fun but can lead to trouble of the official sort and the other can lead to very serious problems with blood pressure.

The Evora is altogether more civilized and refined with far better manners. It is not a little savage like the Exige, so sitting contentedly behind some great fat SUV comes quite a bit easier. There are things to do other than just drive. Idling along in rush-hour traffic in an Exige is tiresome, nerve-wracking and hard on the clutch leg. Idling along in rush-hour traffic in an Evora is relaxing, and there is a lot to do other than just driving. You can mess with the radio, find out how you’re doing on the sat nav, chat on the built-in phone or meander through dozens of satellite radio stations. In short, you can do all the same stuff the guy in the Kia is doing beside you, but when the traffic opens up, well, the guy in the Kia has no idea.

There is still a little of the savage in the Evora. In traffic, it is quiet with just a purring sound reaching you from the mid-mounted engine nestled behind. Oh, I forgot to mention that the Evora is the only 2+2 in the world with a mid-mounted engine.

Once clear of the minivans and people in BMWs who think they own sports cars, the Evora, like all of its forebears, turns into a pureblood. The engine sings a deeper note than the Exige’s, whose supercharged intercooled motor sounds like a tin can full of angry wasps. It is audible but not enough to annoy on long trips, and, as the revs rise, the sound becomes less sibilant and more pleasantly obnoxious.

Corners are effortless, but I think the car’s full abilities for cornering will remain a mystery to me until I get it to a track. But having rounded a couple of isolated country road corners at speeds that would pull the tires off a Civic, I get the sense the Evora cannot be challenged by the Southern Ontario highway system. It doesn’t corner like the Exige, which is a frantically engaging activity where the driver is always tempted to hang the car as far out as possible. The Evora just goes round without any fuss and bother.

I love the Evora and know we will have a lasting relationship, but there is still a huge hole in my heart where the Exige used to live.